I suggest you ask the Cuban percussionists like Amadito Valdes what they think of Joachim, because you will find that they all really rate him.

Nigel, I don't dispute Joachim's talent. My argument is with his father's judgement in infiltrating the sound of, in particular, the middle eastern dumbek into a number of the BVSC songs. It just sounds wrong to these ears.

I suggest you ask the Cuban percussionists like Amadito Valdes what they think of Joachim, because you will find that they all really rate him.

Nigel, I don't dispute Joachim's talent. My argument is with his father's judgement in infiltrating the sound of, in particular, the middle eastern dumbek into a number of the BVSC songs. It just sounds wrong to these ears.

And besides, what are they gonna do? Say the young gringo was crap?? Ha ha!!

Nepotism is fine. It's an accepted tradition in pretty much all musical cultures. The kid has to stand or fall on their own abilities sooner or later, and I daresay it's probably harder to follow a famous father because no matter what you do, you'll always be compared to Dad, or people will say you only get where you are because Dad pulled a few strings. I always felt sorry for people like Vilayat Khan's or Ravi Shankar's kids:
"but Dad, Dad, I want to be an architect/ bank clerk/ accountant".
"Shut up, Junior, and practice your scales. You're going into the family business and that's final."
"But Dad..."
"Practice your scales, I said! I'll hear no more about accountancy school."

I thought Cooder's kid was good, but what do I know about Cuban music? I just like listening to it sometimes.

I'll be attending some parties this week with Cuban percussionists (Aro-Cuban) and dancers. I've been looking forward to this as there will be a lot of dancing, drumming, food, drink. After reading this thread, I realized I don't know as much as I should about people I was going to be hanging out around and looked up a few of their bios, starting with Francisco Aguabella, who I believe is the eldest at 82 years old - Lazaro Galarraga, Toto Berriel, Susana Pedroso are among the rest. The names that came up were Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Celia Cruz, Eddie Palmieri. Even Peggy Lee. When I scanned the list for Ry Cooder or his general generation, what do you know, the name which came up on more than a few bios was Santana. Of course, now that I think about it, for one thing, just last week I watched Woodstock (uncut version) and was reminded his music is all about the rhythm.

i tell ya, maybe it's where I'm at these days, but I was so much more taken with the filmed unscripted parts in between the music, than the music itself. santana was good though. ritchie havens, whom i don't know at all. of course hendrix. but i digress.

Apologies for the lengthy of this... er... rant. But once I get on my high horse it can be difficult to climb down....

Sarcastic introduction

In another thread, I found that I had put my foot into some deep shit (otherwise known as â€˜the entire output of Bob Dylan and Neil Young for the past 30-plus yearsâ€™ â€“ personally, I think â€˜deep shitâ€™ is the snappier title).

Each to their own, and all that. But I do think that these guys have got away with murder over the years, and with precious little criticism or independence of thought from the music media. Maybe Iâ€™m missing something. Maybe itâ€™s just that Iâ€™m expected to pay for my music (and thereâ€™s nothing like hard cash that concentrates my mind). Maybe Iâ€™ve better things to listen to with my time. But please remember, Iâ€™m on their side. I loved (and love) their early stuff. These are good people who have come up with more than their share of great songs. I like them, I really like them but, like any good friend, I try to be honest. So, can I state the case for the loyal opposition? And letâ€™s play clean. No below the belt stuff. You may worship these guys, and Iâ€™ll try and respect your religious views, but how about a bit of logic, a bit of constructive challenge?

Apollonian and Dionysian blah, blah, blah

I found the discussion elsewhere ( http://www.charliegillett.com/phpBB2/vi ... 5&start=15 ) about Apollonian and Dionysian tendencies quite interesting. I donâ€™t suppose that I fully understand it all. And like an excited child on Christmas morning, Iâ€™ll probably insert the batteries the wrong way around and start playing with the box instead. But bear with me.

To my way of thinking, this A/D model thing isnâ€™t perfect. I would have thought that all of us have elements of both in our attitudes to music. But I suspect thereâ€™s something in it and it does seem relevant to an appreciation of Neil Young or Bob Dylan.

The more I think about it, the more that I think that most of me falls into the Dionysian camp. Itâ€™s not that I donâ€™t like a short burst of memorable intellectualism, but my boredom threshold is very low. I just want to flick to the last page and find out who dunnit. I instinctively decide whether or not I like something, I quite like chaos and I can be destructive (!), Iâ€™m not keen on boundaries or cataloguing dead butterflies. Gimme catchy tunes and snappy dialogue and keep it short, please. On the other hand, I suspect that fans of the Latter Day Church of Dylan and Old Mr Young fall into the Apollonian tendency. They like shaggy-dog careers and donâ€™t want to ship to the end to find that it was the fat butler who sang. They like to create order and put everything in its place. They seem to like to collect everything by these people, no matter what. Nothing wrong with that. Different strokes for different folks. But I donâ€™t get it. And hereâ€™s why.

John Stuart Mill and his rocking Utilitarianism

OK, letâ€™s chuck a long word into the conversation pit. Us lot in the Dionysian camp donâ€™t spend all of our time grunting and making with the merry. When weâ€™re in the mood, we can be the thinking manâ€™s idiots. As a SOTW first, letâ€™s briefly mention John Stuart Mill and the theory of Utilitarianism. Actually, itâ€™s just commonsense, but these things always sound better with a long word that ends in â€˜ismâ€™. All it means is that, if a person has nothing, they get a lot of fun out of an additional Â£100. If they are a millionaire, they get no fun out of an additional Â£100 (unless they are truly sad). In other words, the law of diminishing returns.

â€˜Whatâ€™s that got to do with anything?â€™ I hear you ask (I have very good hearing, I only hear what I want to hear). Well, letâ€™s put it this way. How many roads must a man walk down before he wants to take up cycling? How many times must a man look up before he feels like looking in a different direction? How many Bob Dylan or Neil Young songs must a man listen to before he can that being deaf isnâ€™t all bad news? Or letâ€™s put it another way. If you have no Bob Dylan songs, you get a lot of fun out of 10 of them. You get more fun, but slightly less than you might expect, out of the next ten. By the time you get your 40th batch of Dylan ditties, you might start to look sideways to see if thereâ€™s something more interesting on the jukebox.

Surely Shirley, there must come a time when a logical human being would decide that theyâ€™ve had enough. Surely, after 40 years, you might want a change of rut? Particularly, when thereâ€™s so many relatively unploughed fields elsewhere, and that are fertile. It never ceases to amaze me how much truly great music is hidden in the archives, just waiting for the rock to be turned over before leaping for the jugular. Only a few days ago, for example, I tripped over the fantastic â€˜Show Me Your Monkeyâ€™ by Kenny Hamber. (I say â€˜tripped overâ€™, it was Norman who maliciously placed it under my trailing foot). And, quite apart from all these astonishing old records which demand attention thereâ€™s a whole world of fantastic new music out there. Remember? Why would I want to bother with Bob Dylanâ€™s 115th nightmare, when Iâ€™ve only scratched the surface of Fado, Balkan brass, Congolese rumba, Ethiopian soul, tango, flamenco, etc etc? Iâ€™ve got better things to do with my ears than listen to yet another record by yet another old used to be. And havenâ€™t you?

The middle of the road and how to avoid head-on smash hits

I donâ€™t want to spend much time on Neil Young as, frankly, I havenâ€™t really bothered with him over the past 30 years and I canâ€™t speak with any great knowledge about all of that product. I used to visit him regularly, anxious to find some signs of life. Thereâ€™s still a pulse, the fans donâ€™t want to switch off the life-support machine. But I gave up all hope of a full recovery a long time ago. And, I suspect, so did he.

Neil Youngâ€™s quote about getting out of the middle of the road and heading for the ditch is quite well-known. Itâ€™s a smart quote but, to me, itâ€™s just a nifty bit of post-rationalisation. The guyâ€™s not stupid. He must have known that his muse had run out of gas. And itâ€™s not his fault. You wouldnâ€™t expect Sebastian Coe to have a go at the 1500 metres in 2012. The aging process plays merry hell with muscle tissue and the brain is no different. Some creative processes can survive into old age, but writing great pop songs isnâ€™t one of them. Itâ€™s a young personâ€™s game. There are only so many years, maybe 10 at the most, that any songwriter can be genuinely creative. The Beatles, Dylan, Rolling Stones, Smokey Robinson, Brian Wilson, Leonard Cohen, Stevie Wonderâ€¦â€¦ you name them. They were all great for a few years (truly great), and then the juices dried up and they had to fall back on their professionalism and craft. It doesnâ€™t make them bad people. Itâ€™s just an inevitable fact about creativity. It doesnâ€™t last forever. Unlike good marketing.

So, what do you do in that situation, when it dawns on you that youâ€™ve had your last hit single? Do you say â€˜Iâ€™ve dried up in the catchy tunes department and thereâ€™s not much point in buying my stuff anymoreâ€™? Or do you try and find a comfortable niche, a â€˜ditchâ€™, where you can continue to grind out a career?

Despite the implications of that quote, Neil Young was never, ever, middle of the road. He never ploughed the same ground as John Denver or James Taylor, he always veered towards left-field. But, in his heyday , he could come up with a catchy tune and a decent lyric and put it across. â€˜Tell Me Whyâ€™, â€˜Wordsâ€™, â€˜Southern Manâ€™, â€˜Only Love Can Break your heartâ€™, â€˜Heart of Goldâ€™â€¦ the guy turned up lots of buried treasure. Songs that were bright enough to catch the attention of ordinary people going about their daily business. Songs that were hit singles. Songs that were part of the common currency. Itâ€™s not his fault that he couldnâ€™t keep up that pace. Nobody else can. But why pretend that he chose not to write any more catchy songs? He might as well claim that he chose to get old. And heâ€™s not in some murky, slightly dangerous, ditch. In reality, heâ€™s in a chauffeur driven limo, tootling along in the slow lane and trying to remember where heâ€™s going.

The monkeys that didnâ€™t bark

I mentioned that song, â€˜Show me your monkeyâ€™, a while back. Itâ€™s a stupid song. Itâ€™s not that itâ€™s completely devoid of educational value (the girlie singers do count up to 10 in the background) but, frankly, itâ€™s not about much of anything. Initially, I was hopeful that it would turn out to be quite rude but, sadly, if itâ€™s about anything, I think itâ€™s just about dancing. Itâ€™s about as poppy as R&B gets, with no chance of being reissued in a three CD deluxe box set complete with alternate takes and live versions. But, with a bright Bert Berns production and a lively vocal, it has an infectious sense of life about it. One hit and you stay hit. And, frankly, itâ€™s 2 minutes and 11 seconds adds up to more than Dylanâ€™s output over the past 30 years.

There was a time when Dylan could also deliver the knock-out tracks. â€˜Visions of Johannaâ€™, â€˜Like A Rolling Stoneâ€™, â€˜Desolation Rowâ€™, â€˜She Belongs To Meâ€™, â€˜All Along the Watchtowerâ€™â€¦. I could fill a page with his great songs of the 60s, and there was a time when I could recite them, almost word for word. But itâ€™s a long time since Dylan showed us his monkey. â€˜Desireâ€™, â€˜Street Legalâ€™, â€˜Slow Train Comingâ€™, â€˜Infidelsâ€™, â€˜Shot of Loveâ€™â€¦ too much of nothing for more than 30 years. Thereâ€™s no sense of life, no unexpected wildness there. All we have are tame specimens, bred in captivity and going quietly mad in their zoo cage, available for the experts to observe and the public to briefly gawp at. Would any unknown have got away with this consistency in tedium? Of course not. But thereâ€™s a valuable brand that needs to be preserved. And money begets money.

And there is a professionalism, a sense of craft about the guy. A determination to keep on keeping on. As a live act, I think heâ€™s improved with age. I saw him in 1975 and, as a star-struck youth, thought he was OK. I saw him in 2002, in cynical middle age, and thought he was dazzlingly great. Heâ€™s shown himself to be an engaging radio presenter. â€˜Radio Theme Timeâ€™ has shown him to be an engaging presenter and highly knowledgeable about music. And â€˜Chroniclesâ€™ is one of the greatest ever pop autobiographies.

I just wish I could be as positive about his records. Nowadays, he just sounds like a poor impersonation of himself. He knows the moves, he can open and shut his mouth at the right times and, if heâ€™s lost his bark, the marketing people can always fill in with the appropriate noises. Every now and then, he comes out with a â€˜Blind Willie McTellâ€™ or an album like â€˜Love and Theftâ€™. Not a great album, in my view (unless â€˜greatâ€™ has been devalued to mean â€˜adequateâ€™). His voice is shot to hell and the songs are dull. But theyâ€™re not as bad as might be expected and so they are dutifully acclaimed by the powers that be as the return of the messiah (not that he ever went away, obviously). Unfortunately, the man himself is more interested in getting for Ceaser what is going to belong to Ceaser.

Blood on the tracks, squeezed out of a stone, freeze-dried and in a museum near you

The trouble is that Bob Dylan the songwriter and creative artist has just become a heavily marketed commodity. Surely, in any rational assessment, heâ€™s become pointless. Iâ€™m not talking about Dylan the man, or the radio presenter, or the live performer. But, as an artist bringing out albums of â€˜newâ€™ stuff, he seems to be as valuable as an Icelandic I.O.U.

And then thereâ€™s this mini industry of official Dylan â€˜bootlegsâ€™ thatâ€™s emerged, stuff thatâ€™s been scraped off the floor of the archive room and served up with great aplomb. Even the name is taking the piss. â€˜Bootleg?â€™ Thereâ€™s nothing edgy about these releases. Theyâ€™re an officially sanctioned, corporate programme of museum pieces. In the real world, who would want to bootleg this stuff? Pirates with a powerful marketing department? This stuff was deemed to be substandard at the time, hidden from view and kept safely under lock and key. Why is it now considered to be so essential? Have standards slipped so much? Why is Dylan regarded as such a sacred cow? Heâ€™s nothing left to get off his chest, and yet he keeps tugging at his teats, milking that back catalogue like thereâ€™s no tomorrow. If not his udders, doesnâ€™t his conscience chafe?

And I find the marketing ploys to be truly offensive. The latest â€˜bootlegâ€™ is available in three versions. There will of course be the nutters who will want to buy all three, but what can we do about them? Lock them up for their own good? But itâ€™s the cycnical pricing policy that really angers me. You can pick up the double CD version for about Â£15. Fair enough, if youâ€™ve nothing better to do with your money (assuming that youâ€™re one of those suckers that has to buy your music). But itâ€™ll cost you Â£90 if you want to go for the for the â€˜deluxeâ€™ three CD box set. Why? Whatâ€™s the justification for this, other than he feels that he can get away with it? As far as Iâ€™m concerned, this sort of behaviour is unacceptable. And I donâ€™t mean that in the sense of â€˜a bit disappointingâ€™, I mean â€˜not to be acceptedâ€™. I wonâ€™t be buying any more Dylan albums. I wonâ€™t let him make a monkey out of me. As far as Iâ€™m concerned, his brand was irredeemably devalued years ago. Not that it matters. Thereâ€™s a sucker born every minute.

But some folks seem to lap up this stuff. Theyâ€™re clearly not idiots. In all other respects, they seem to be able to function as fully-rounded human beings. But they seem to have a weakness for this never-ending parade of outtakes, live versions, alternate versions, mistakes and God knows what else. Where I go for breadth, skimming over everything I can lay my ears on and lapping up the cream, they delve deeper and deeper into the detail of a single mouldy bit of cheese.

How did it come to this? Music is such a natural art form, full of wildness and humanity, a soundtrack for dancing, making love, getting pissed, or just having a laugh. A soundtrack for life. How does it end up being treated like a collection of dead butterflies? Displayed in glass cases (deluxe edition), with individual specimens stuck on little pins, catalogued and explained. Box sets which are wrapped up with all sorts of hyperbole and get the stamp of approval from the learned critics. But nothing gets delivered anymore, at least not to me.

Provocation! I love it. Thanks for the effort you've put into that Gordon.

I don't fully go along with it. You're a bit harsh on Neil Young, partly I think due to a lack of acquaintance with his recent output, which has been patchy but contained some real highlights. In particular you seem only to have noticed the Apollonian Neil rather than the Dionysiac Grunge Guitar Hero.(the terms seem useful here). A man who has kept true to both his dark and light sides - which I think is some pretty respectable achievement artistically.

OK you can note a decline in quality of his songwriting over time. As you say, nobody keeps it going for more than a few years. But the guy can still cut it live in a way that Dylan can't be bothered to, without merely relying on the glories of a back catalogue.

Since I effectively stopped listening to new Dylan records in any depth around 1980 and lost interest in him during his God period, can't really comment. I am not a record collector for the sake of it and couldn't afford all the box sets etc etc anyway.

OK, read it now. Agree on the whole. I went to see Dylan a few years back and felt very much like an atheist in church. All around me were people going nuts for this elderly bloke with a guitar, fronting a superior bar band, mangling classic Dylan song after classic Dylan song. He had no voice left to speak of and he kept on insisting on playing almost inaudible and inept lead guitar solos over everything. What was so great about that? I dunno. He was a much better guitar player 45 years ago, that I DO know.

I love Dylan's 60s output, and I love "Desire" and "Blood On The Tracks" and that's it. I thought "Gotta Serve Somebody" was a great song but after you've heard Johnny Cash singing "Cut You Down" it sounds a bit anaemic. I think that Dylan contributed SO MUCH in the 60s, that it's a bit unfair to expect him to produce anything of value nowadays. The fact that he still comes up with the odd good tune (and you know the old musicians joke about Bob Dylan: have you heard this guy Bob Dylan? He writes all these gorgeous melodies and then gets Bob Dylan in to sing them) is in itself a minor miracle.

But what, what, what does he do with all his money?! I've often wondered. He lives on the road where he doesn't need to spend anything beyond paying for transportation, hotels and wages for his band. Oh well, he's probably not nearly as rich as the CEO of Exxon Mobil...

A good effort there Gordon and I agree with you on much of it. The reason why Dylan/Young tend to be so venerated is they represent the Baby Boomer's poet(s) laureates and with Dylan keeping up the mystique and Neil still doing doggedly odd stuff (bad films - hmmm Bob does that too) it allows for those (specifically the core of the Mojo/Uncut audience) to keep talking about these "artists" as if they still represented some remarkable creative font.

I think I have heard every legitimate album Bob has released. Some are great. Most aren't but there used to be the occasional great song amongst the dross - Every Grain Of Sand, Jokerman, Brownsville Girl - yet even this stopped a long time ago. I bought Time Out Of Mind due to the hype and while i really tried i found it unlistenable and one lyric really annoyed "i'm love sick/I'm sick of love". If Green Day or Oasis sang that we would groan but with Bob most rock crits roll over and sigh with pleasure. Akin to a religious experience. Ian's recent posting on Dylan's early 90s "traditional" albums made me drag out World Gone Wrong for the first time in years. It sounds pretty dire, badly sung and played. On Love & Theft his band sound great - Charlie Sexton sizzling on guitar - but the songs remain moribund. Modern Times is the most overrated album of recent years. Bob worship, it's really sad.

I don't think Neil can ever be considered an "albums" artist - I say this having owned a lot of his 70s lps and while they might contain an awesome tune (Cortez The Killer, Like A Hurricane) they were overall pretty dull. That's why so many of us own Decade - saves you from sifting through those albums for the odd tunes that stood out. When there was all the noise about his comeback in the early 90s I checked out his albums but Rockin' In The Free World and such were pretty thin stuff, Neil imitating Neil. My girlfriend bought his anti-war album. We sat and listened and admitted Not A Good Purchase. Yes, it's nice that after being a vocal Reagan supporter he now dislikes Bush but that doesn't mean the songs are any good. I've only caught him live once and the newer songs - Fuckin' Up and such - were very weak.

As Gordon noted other 60s vets - Stevie W and Smokey R - are not treated with such hushed reverance. Why? They wrote as many fine songs - maybe more if u consider Smokey's extra circular efforts - and also changed the way popular music was created. The answer has to be that Motown presented them as smooth entertainers, none of this 60s boho druggy mystique that Neil and Bob got wrapped in. And they're black. Bob and Neil's fans find it easier to venerate 60-something white guys who they resemble a bit. Not racism, just affection/affectation.

Maybe Bob and Neil will recover their mojo to make new masterpieces - they both get out there and try. But as with the Stones and McCartney I doubt it. Let's remember that these guys are big entertainment industries and that is one of the main reasons we keep hearing about them.

Well, I must say that this is a fine how-do-you-do. I do my best to be provocative and all I get is guys that broadly agree with me. Where's the fun in that? But maybe the Dylanophiles are an older set and will take a bit longer to calm down before launching a counter strike. Come to mention it, there's a chap outside my window, dessed in cricketing whites and brandishing a large bat.........